Two short lines are all Dave Bonta gives us, and the poem leans hard on what they leave out. We get a dead man floating on water, and the title, "Night barge," tells us when and how we are seeing him. Nothing is said about who he is, how he died, or who is watching.
That silence is what makes the poem work. The speaker never says "I feel sorrow" or "I am afraid," so the feeling has to come from the image. The flat, plain wording reads like someone simply reporting what they see, which can feel more chilling than an emotional outburst. The calm tone suggests shock, or maybe a kind of numb acceptance.
The title adds a strange twist. A barge is a slow, heavy vessel for carrying cargo, and the poem seems to invite us to imagine the body as something carried along, or the barge itself as a shape passing through the dark. Either way, the mood is quiet, eerie, and still, like a moment that lingers after the words stop.